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01/25/2017 07:30 AMYou may know him by the Crocs on his feet, one of three pairs in orange, camouflage, or chili pepper design; or maybe you recall his well tattooed forearms, but most likely, the thing people associate with Alan Demick is the meat loaf, specifically the meat loaf that regularly appears on the hot counter at Simon’s in Chester. Alan is the chef, and he knows what happens on the occasional day when there is no meat loaf.
“I feel the wrath of the customers,” he says. The ironic thing is that the meat loaf recipe isn’t even his; it predates his nine-years at Simon’s. (The recipe comes from Simon’s owner, Jim Reilly.)
Alan has overall charge of the food preparation at Simon’s and generally takes specific responsibility for the hot offerings. As far as meals beyond the storied meat loaf, one of the images on Alan’s arm says it all: a tattoo of a pig.
“The pig is my favorite animal, and cooking pork is spectacular,” he says. That translates to the pulled pork that often appears on the Simon’s menu. The only thing that has ever frustrated him is making falafel. He forms the balls but when he puts the ground chickpea balls in the hot oil, things sometimes go awry. “They fall apart,” he says.
Beyond the image of the pig, Alan’s newest tattoo sums his overall approach of cooking—and life. It is a visual rendition of a principle that still holds sway in areas from cuisine to scientific research: a large single blade with the phrase Occam’s Razor inscribed underneath it. The concept, attributed to the 14th century English philosopher William of Occam, holds that among competing explanations, the simplest is the best. Alan worked with a tattoo artist in Newington, visiting his shop several times to develop the design for his Occam’s Razor tattoo.
“I believe in simplicity. It is critical to me in so many things,” Alan says. Cooking, for instance, he says is a mixture of simplicity and technique, two qualities he identifies as more important than individual recipes in creating the final product.
Alan, who grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was the fifth of six boys. “Gave me more time to hang around my mother’s kitchen and learn how to cook,” he explains. At the University of Massachusetts he majored in chemistry, but mother’s lessons proved more important: when he graduated he took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Gloucester, Massachusetts, working through a number of eating establishments as he learned the business. “All you have to do is want to learn and ask smart questions,” he says.
For a year in Minneapolis, he worked at a Greek restaurant while at the same time being part of a domestic missionary effort. “It was the ‘70s. I suppose you could say it was a cult; it was a non-denominational thing,” he recalls. He can still sprinkle his conversation with scriptural references, but he says they all come down to one simple idea. “I attempt to be conscious of the gifts around me, to receive and recognize them and say thank you,” he explains.
When his children were young, restaurant work made family life challenging. “I had two young kids and I was working all weekend,” he remembers, so Alan took his culinary talents in a different direction. He managed executive dining rooms at Aetna and the Hartford Insurance Group for some eight years. Alan’s children are now in their 30s, both high school teachers, his daughter in mathematics and his son in chemistry. “That’s what I am most proud of, my family; my wife, my children,” Alan says.
As a part of his position heading executive dining rooms, Alan was required to take company management, business and personnel seminars. When a friend opened a direct mail business, Alan gave him business advice, enough advice so that ultimately the friend hired him. Alan went on to work in the direct mail business for nearly a decade, rising to the position of general manager in the last firm. But then the 2008 recession struck. The large banks which had sent out bulk mailings cut back drastically, and Alan who was the last hired of three managers was let go.
He turned once again to his skills as a chef, calling Jim Reilly whom he had known through his restaurant work. “He told me he had a deli in Chester and I should meet him there,” Alan says. He came to visit Simon’s and it was an instant match. “I knew this place was awesome when I walked in; I saw it; I felt it,” he says.
What he likes to make best at Simon’s is soup. At the moment, he says, his five-spice butternut squash soup is a favorite. He also enjoys mentoring the young people who work at Simon’s, both in cooking skills and sometimes in life. “I’ve had a couple of dad-type conversations with people,” he says. In addition to working in the kitchen, Alan works occasionally at the counter serving customers. “I like to get to know the people who come here,” he explains.
In his free time, Alan is a lifelong fisherman, proclaiming his passion with a fish tattoo on his arm. As a boy, he fished with his father. More recently, he fished for bass competitively for some 15 years all over the state of Connecticut.
In the restaurant world of Chester, Alan says cooperation rather than competition is the rule. “Anybody who runs a restaurant has run out of something, a couple of lemons maybe. If somebody needs a flat of eggs because theirs have not arrived,” somebody else steps up,” he says.
At home after a day of cooking, Alan cooks again, making dinner because he gets home before his wife Linda. But his menu is simple. Usually he just puts something on the grill. “My creative juices are all spent by that time,” he says.